Tenants money builds affordable housing

A recent media release from the Minister for Social Housing, Brad Hazzard, refers to the NSW Government committing $270million to affordable housing projects during the first four rounds of the now discontinued National Rental Affordability Scheme.

A portion of that $270million comes from tenants' money.

Pages 28 and 29 of the Rental Bond Board's 2015/16 Annual Report show grants and subsidies in the amount of $2.5million going to NRAS in both 2015 and 2016.

The Minister's media release is reproduced here in full:

NEW AFFORDABLE HOUSING FOR 65 FAMILIES 

Some Sydneysiders who have been struggling to rent have been able to move into brand new affordable housing in Sydney’s west, paying rents at least 20 per cent below the market rate. 

Minister for Family and Community Services and Social Housing, Brad Hazzard has officially opened the new Bridge Housing development at the Bungarribee estate in Blacktown. 

“The NSW Government has forged very close ties with the Community Housing Sector, both in the provision of social housing and affordable housing, and I am delighted that Bridge Housing has been able to support so many people with this development,” Mr Hazzard said. 

CEO of Bridge Housing, John Nicolades, said “We are delighted to have completed our first major affordable housing development, providing 65 well designed and energy efficient homes to families struggling in Sydney’s difficult housing market.
“We have another two projects that will deliver a further 47 affordable homes by December 2016.” 

Bridge Housing’s $25 million development has been built on land purchased from UrbanGrowth NSW in 2013, with the support of $1.8 million in FACS funding and incentives and funds from the Commonwealth through the National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS). 

New figures from FACS shows that a record 1,252 new affordable rental homes were delivered under the NRAS in 2015-16, bringing the total number to 4,653.
NSW committed around $270 million during the first four NRAS rounds, with NSW’s contribution attracting over $1 billion in additional funding commitments from Community Housing Providers and private sector investors. 

Thirty-one of the homes owned by Bridge will be permanent affordable housing; thirty-four have been sold to private investors to help fund the project, and are leased as affordable housing for the next 10 years.

Ivanhoe Estate redevelopment timeline

The Land and Housing Corporation-lead redevelopment of the Ivanhoe Estate in Macquarie Park was announced in September 2015. Six months later and on the ground work has commenced, with the relocation of current tenants now taking place. 

But the proposal existed, in a number of distinct incarnations, for over four years prior to last year's decision. The Ivanhoe Estate Tenant Group has posted a timeline to its Facebook page of events leading up to the September announcement (original link here). The story it tells is one of equivocation, referral, and delay - as well as years of uncertainty for the residents affected:

Millers Point tenants make their point

Millers Point tenants have made submissions to the NSW State Government as it continues to review social housing in the area.

Two groups have made submissions: the Millers Point Public Housing Tenants Committee (MPPHTC), and the Committee of Residents Elected by Millers Point, Dawes Point and the Rocks (CoRE). They take different approaches, but both are strong testaments to the local community's determination that social housing in Millers Point must be retained. We've read them, and commend them both.

The MPPHTC's submission is straightforward: keep Millers Point as social housing – and, in particular, as public housing. Amongst other things, they make an interesting point about security of tenure and expectations. Long-term tenants at Millers Point – some of them go back many decades, even generations – recall being assured that they should regard their homes as theirs for life. This assurance was given by the previous government landlord of the properties, Maritime Services, when many of the tenants or their families worked in maritime industries or other occupations in what was in some respects a government town. Tenants say they've regard that expectation of security like other people might regard superannuation: as security in their post-work lives.

The CoRE submission also recommends, in the first place, keeping Millers Point as public housing. But CoRE presents an alternative recommendation: if Housing NSW must get out of Millers Point, let tenants stay put and bring a community housing provider in. With the pro bono assistance of the consulting company Sphere, they've crunched the numbers and shown that a community housing provider, with increased rental revenues from tenants' receipt of Commonwealth Rent Assistance, and a limited program of property sales (between 35 and 66 sales over five years, depending on the scenario), could repair the remaining properties to an appropriate standard and manage them as social housing on a sustainable basis.

It is fair to say that not everyone in Millers Point is at ease with the idea of any further property sales, or a different type of social housing provider – but the fact that the CoRE tenants are prepared to do some hard thinking and look at uneasy options says a lot about their commitment to keeping social housing in Millers Point. It is an impressive proposal and deserves further investigation with collaboration from all stakeholders.

Apollo estate (East Dubbo) to be sold

A different sort of social housing estate redevelopment: public housing tenants at the Apollo estate in East Dubbo have been informed that their houses are to be put on the market for sale to individual buyers. The objective, says the NSW State Government, is to reduce the concentration of social housing in East Dubbo.

(Apollo House)

The Government says that about 60 properties will be sold, and that there are no plans to build any new social housing stock in Dubbo – so it is not just the concentration, but the absolute amount of social housing that will be reduced.

What will become of the tenants? They're invited to consider buying their houses when they come up for sale. The local MP is encouraging them to do so, noting:

Buying a house would bring with it the benefit of the pride of ownership.

Hmm. It looks like a fairly proud bunch of tenants who participated in the recent Building Stronger Communities program, which invested in a range of community planning activities; support services; education, training and employment opportunities; and landscaping and other physical improvements to the estate. This program wrapped up in 2011.

Those not buying can expect to be offered alternative social housing... but where?

If you've any news from the ground at East Dubbo, please let us know.

Residents’ Voices Book Project

Interested in redevelopments of social housing estates? You may like to keep in touch with the Residents’ Voices Project. 

Residents’ Voices is a global network where social housing residents are the experts.  Two current projects are a website and book.

The Residents’ Voices website provides a resident-led forum for tenants to share their experience and knowledge of being a social or public housing tenant and, where necessary, to challenge the views of non-residents. Through this website you can get involved in a redevelopment debate, contribute to an existing Residents’ Voices project or start a new project. You will have the opportunity to highlight the issues that are important to you and your community and to share your stories with other tenants in different streets, states and countries. The website also has video snap shots.

Residents, community workers and researchers from Inner Sydney, Western Sydney and Chicago are also collaboratively writing a book that challenges the misrepresentations of public housing tenants and estates. This book is about challenging policy assumptions and validating the experiences of residents. 

The book will outline a suite of public housing tenants experiences and observations that critically investigate poverty, place and disadvantage. Drawing on empirical case studies from the US and Australia the contributions will challenge conventional approaches to researching poverty, place and disadvantage. The central aim of the book is to challenge the representations and misrepresentations of public housing tenants and estates by validating the narratives and knowledge of residents.

Over the last decade policy-makers in the US, UK and Australia – often through a public, private or non-government housing manager – have set out to ‘de-concentrate’ poor households. These policy interventions have been justified and undertaken in the absence of conclusive research data about the many drivers of concentrations of disadvantage. International inquiry into poverty, place and disadvantage has been dominated by conventional research methodologies that have failed to determine whether the geographic concentration of disadvantaged households exacerbates disadvantage or contributes to the reproduction of poverty.

When participatory research methodologies are used to collaborate with the residents of so-called ‘disadvantaged places’, questions and definitions of poverty, place and disadvantage are radically restructured. The book will argue for an approach to understanding and addressing disadvantage that draws on the knowledge of the residents themselves.  Currently there is a call out for residents to participate in the book.

For more information about the book project contact Dallas Rogers.  

Telephone: 0432 295 605

Email: d.rogers@uws.edu.au

The broader university research project that Resident Voices is part of is being supported by the Australian Research Council, St Vincent de Paul Society, The Tenants' Union of NSW, the University of Western Sydney, Flinders University and Centre for Urban Research and Learning at Loyola University, Chicago.